MEMBERS

Dr. Michał Kucewicz

is the founder of the Brain & Mind Electrophysiology (BME) lab at the BioTechMed Center of the Gdansk University of Technology in Poland. BME lab focuses on studying the brain activities underlying memory and higher cognitive functions with technologies for intracranial multi-electrode recordings and stimulation mainly in epilepsypatients. The goal of this research is to discover the elctrophysiological substrates of engrams and the human mind to develop neuromodulation therapies for restoring these in epilepsy, dementias, psychiatric and other brain diseases.

Dr. Kucewicz is an electrophysiologist by training. He graduated from Cambridge University in neuroscience and completed his doctoral studies in electrophysiology of memory functions at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. His postdoctoral research at Mayo Clinic in the USA took advantage of intracranial brain recordings and stimulation in epilepsy patients undergoing invasive monitoring of drug-resistant seizures to investigate the neural activities supporting memory processing. During this time at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Kucewicz took part in one of the flagship projects of the American BRAIN initiative called ‘Restoring Active Memories’ (RAM) funded by DARPA. The team that he was leading at Mayo Clinic discovered that direct electrical stimulation in the lateral temporal cortex improves human verbal memory even in patuients without any memory deficits.

His BME lab is currently working on implantable devices and technologies for continuous recording and intelligent brain stimulation during daily life performance. This research develops next-generation Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) for adaptive neuromodulation therapies employing artificial intelligence and Big-Data analytics from months and years of recording electrophysiological activities that are streamed from the implanted device to cloud environment in order to optimize the stimulation therapy in any one patient. The envisioned outcomes aim towards personalized telemedicine diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of memory and cognitive deficits with adaptive neuromodulation.

Dr. Kucewicz’s research has been continually supported from prestigious national and international grants from the Foundation for Polish Science, the National Science Centre in Poland, and from other European research programmes. He serves as a reviewer for these and other major programmes, including the Horizon grants from he European Research Council, and for the leading journals like Science Adavances, Nature Communications, Nature Human Behavior or Brain. Dr. Kucewicz was recognized as the scientist of the year by the neurology department at Mayo Clinic, where he currently holds an Assistant Professor academic rank.

Besides his research achievements, Dr. Kucewicz is a loving husband and a father of four. He is leading the mission of Cor et Lumen Christi international catholic community in Poland, which proclaims the Gospel confirmed with prophecies, healings and other supernatural signs.

Google Scholar

Jan Cimbálník

was born in 1985 in Uherske Hradiste, Czech Republic. In 2010 he simultaneously finished Master degree’s at Charles University in Prague and Czech Technical University in Prague, both aimed at biomedical engineering and biomedical informatics. He started his Ph.D. studies at Brno Technical University while working at International Clinical Research Center, St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno. His doctoral thesis was focused on development of detection algorithms for high frequency oscillations in intracranial EEG signals both in normal and epileptic brain tissue. Within his doctoral studies he underwent a one year stay at Mayo Clinic, USA where he met with Dr. Kucewicz. Upon his return to Czech Republic he finished his doctorate degree and continued his career as a biomedical engineer in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at International Clinical Research Center. In 2019 he was awarded a 6 month grant funded by Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange focused on collaboration with Dr. Kucewicz’s Brain and Mind Electrophysiology laboratory. He focuses on analysis of normal and epileptic intracranial EEG, big data processing and storage, and utilization of machine learning in brain electrophysiology.

 

Google Scholar

Olga Szmit

Olga Szmit received her MSc. degree from Chemical Technology, Gdańsk University of Technology. In 2014 she also graduated from University of Business and Administration, Ecoenergetic: Administration of renewable energy sources.

She gained project administration experience during realization of many projects: firstly in private enterprise, now in Gdańsk University of Technology.

Michał Lech

Michał Lech was born in Gdynia in 1983. In 2007 he graduated from the faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics of Gdansk University of Technology. In June 2013, he received his Ph.D. degree. The subject of the dissertation was: “A Method and Algorithms for Controlling the Sound Mixing Processes with Hand Gestures Recognized Using Computer Vision”. The main focus of the thesis was the bias of audio perception caused by the presence/absence of visual stimuli. He has worked as a researcher and C#/C++/Java developer in many projects concerning multimodal human-computer interfaces. Three of the projects were devoted to brain stimulation. In each project, he was responsible for developing both the signal acquisition/processing methods and data classification methods. Currently, his goal is to find optimal parameters of the brain stimulation for memory enhancement. His non-scientific interests concern guitar playing, music production, and symphonic orchestration.

Google Scholar

Maria Renke

Maria Renke was born in 1999 in Gdańsk. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering, specializing in Medical Physics, from the Gdańsk University of Technology in 2023. Currently, she is pursuing a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence. She also recently (2024) graduated in Medicine from the Medical University of Gdańsk.
Under the supervision of Dr. Michal Kucewicz, Maria is focused on identifying biomarkers for verbal memory using eye-tracking and pupillometry measures during simple eye-tracking tasks. She has gained her research experience through various internships, including working with Professor David Bennett’s neural injury group at the University of Oxford, an Erasmus+ exchange at Sorbonne University in Paris, and her most recent internship at the Academic Neuroscience Center at King’s College London.
Maria is also an active member of the Collegium Invisibile organization, where she tutors talented high school students in neuroscience. Additionally, she represents the Gdańsk University of Technology in athletics.

Jesus Salinas Garcia

Jesus Garcia was born in Acapulco, Mexico. In 2017 obtained his Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica Optica y Electronica, Mexico. In 2022 obtained his Doctoral degree in Computer Science from the same institution. Both studies, developed at the Biosignal Processing and Medical Computing Laboratory, focused on the analysis and classification of EEG signals related to imagined speech in BCIs, i.e., the detection of the imagination of specific words in brain signals. He is currently in a Postdoctoral research related to memory encoding in electroencephalographic signals at the Brain and Mind Electrophysiology Laboratory at Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland. His scientific fields of study include computer science, biosignal processing, machine learning, and neuroscience. He has a great interest in understanding the human brain employing computational methods. His non-scientific interests include  guitar playing, tennis, and swimming.

Dr Luis Felipe Sarmiento

Was born in Medellin, Colombia. He holds a bachelor degree in psychology and a Master’s in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. He received his PhD in Neuroscience and Cellular Biology from Federal University from Para, in Brazil with a scholarship from the Organization of American States(OAS).
In 2019, he was awarded with the YITP grant in South Korea, and in 2020 he earned the IBRO Exchange Fellowship in Moscow, Russia (However travel was cancelled due to covid pandemic restrictions)
Currently, Luis is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brain and Mind Laboratory of Prof. Dr. Michal Kucewicz at Gdansk University of Technology, in Poland, where he is studying single unit recordings from concept cells in memory.

Çağdaş Topçu

was born in 1987 in Adana. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Yıldız Technical University and his master’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Akdeniz University. The subject of his dissertation was Assessing functional recovery of face and arm transplantation and trauma patients with nonlinear methods. Between 2013 and 2015 he worked as a research assistant on the project Rehabilitation of patients with arm and face transplantation and trauma patients with functional electrical stimulation. He worked with full-face transplantation, arm transplantation and arm replantation patients to support their neurorehabilitation processes in this project. He works on memory processes in neurodegenerative diseases in his PhD studies. He is keen on biomedical signal processing and neural engineering.

 

Google Scholar

Victoria Marks

was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1995.  In 2017, she graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and minors in Chemistry and Electrical Engineering.  She is now pursuing her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences, concentrating in Biomedical Engineering and Physiology, at the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.  She has joined the Mayo Systems Electrophysiology Lab, working with Dr. Gregory A. Worrell as her thesis mentor, and with Dr. Michal T. Kucewicz and the BME lab in the First Team project of the Foundation for Polish Science.  The subject of her thesis work is the interaction between sleep, memory, and cognition.  She is also interested in the role brain stimulation has in modulating these functions.  Her scientific passions include neuro-degenerative diseases, medical device development, and signal processing advancement, and her research goal is to illuminate the utility of existing therapies in alleviating memory-related symptomology.  Her non-scientific passions include classical literature, Egyptian mythology, and scuba diving.

Google Scholar

Krishnakant Saboo

was born in 1993 in India. He received his Bachelors and Masters in Electrical Engineering with specialization in Communication and Signal Processing from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 2016. He is now pursuing his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research is on application of machine learning techniques for neurology, with a focus on understanding the interaction of brain electrophysiology with memory and cognition. He is working under the mentorship of Prof. Ravishankar Iyer, Dr. Gregory Worrell and Dr. Michal Kucewicz. His broad interest lies in machine learning, signal processing and neuroscience with the goal of illuminating the working of the brain for development of neurotechnologies. Besides research, he likes to spend time on developing his recently discovered passion for teaching.

Sathwik Prathapagiri

was born in 2000. In 2022, he completed his Master’s of Science in  Biological Sciences and Bachelor’s of Engineering in Chemical Engineering in an integrated dual degree program from Birla Institute Of Technology And Science, Pilani, India. During his final year, he worked as a research intern under Dr Giri P Krishnan at Bazhenov lab, University of California San Diego school of medicine to pursue his Master’s Thesis on “Using Markov models and machine learning to characterise replay based on spiking activity during sleep.”
and under Dr Anand Subramoney at the Institut für Neuroinformatik (INI), Ruhr-Universität Bochum  to pursue his Bachelor’s thesis on  “Using Long short-term memory Spiking Neural Networks to interpret and characterize the oscillatory activity and synchrony of a network of neurons.”. His previous works include research projects and internships in the field of Deep Learning, Computer vision and Neuroscience.  He is currently conducting theoretical research on understanding the role of High frequency oscillations in memory using mathematical models and artificial intelligence. The goal of his research is to understand and discover the mechanisms for information processing and dynamics of memory formation in the brain.

Nastaran Hamedi

Nastaran was born in Iran in 1996. In 2021, she graduated from Khajeh Nasir al-Din Toosi University of Technology (KNTU) with a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering. With a desire to utilize her experience in professional scientific research, and an interest in signal processing, machine learning, and deep learning, she obtained the skills necessary to practice these topics during her master’s program and has more than four years of experience in the aforementioned fields.

In her master’s thesis, she explored the application of artificial intelligence in brain signal processing in order to detect Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in its early stages by using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Over the years, she has developed research projects and taught courses in the fields of machine learning, biological signal processing, brain-computer interfaces, and neuroscience. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate in IT at the Gdansk University of Technology, conducting research related to memory encoding in electroencephalographic signals. Her research involves memory encoding in electroencephalographic signals. She is passionate about learning about the mechanisms of the human mind, and she views it as a key to unlocking many doors that have remained closed for so long. Asidefrom her interest in science, she enjoys playing the violin, painting, and exercising.

Marina Galanina

Marina was born in 2001. In recognition of her academic achievements, she was awarded a scholarship by NAWA (National Agency for Academic Exchange). NAWA grants scholarships to international students based on annually announced programs, and the selection process involves rigorous tests and evaluations. In 2019, Marina was admitted to the Gdansk University of Technology, where she embarked on a journey towards academic excellence. Her hard work culminated in the successful completion of her undergraduate studies in 2023, with the submission of an insightful engineering thesis focused on the development of an intelligent mirror for individuals with visual impairments. Currently, she is pursuing further academic endeavors by studying Artificial Intelligence at the Gdansk University of Technology. She is actively engaged in cutting-edge research, particularly in the domain of depression detection through speech analysis. Marina is a valued member of Lion.AI, showcasing her commitment to advancing the field of AI. Additionally, she is an active participant in the PyData Trójmasto community. Aside from science, she has a deep interest in folk dancing and Polish language

Sahar Seifzadeh

Shiraz, Iran, was her birthplace. She graduated from the University of Qazvin with a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence. Her master thesis was focused on EEG signal processing for the purpose of Cue-based Brain Computer interface consisted of different Motor Imagery tasks. In 2019, she obtained a prestigious young brain researcher award from IBRO (International Brain Research Organization) and the full grant to attend SKKU university’s Neuroimaging Research Lab (COCOAN) in Suwon-Korea under the supervision of Dr. Choong-Wan Woo.

Afterwards, she also attended Neurorehabilitation lab to get some experience in neuromodulation techniques including Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) and the physiologic measurements. From 2022 she has been enrolled to a doctoral program in biomedical engineering at the Gdańsk University of Technology, as part of the BME lab. Aside from science, she is passionate about spirituality, animal care, nostalgic music, fashion design and painting.

Aleksandra Orzoł

was born in 1998 in Olsztyn. She graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz High School No. 1 in Olsztyn. She attended a class in advanced subjects of Biology, Chemistry and English. Since 2017 she has been studying neurobiopsychology at the Faculty of social sciences of University of Gdansk. During her studies she attended The Experior Psychological Research Group, where she was developing her interest in science. She was also responsible for workshops about behavioral addictions for students in highschool who participated in the previous research.  At the moment, she is responsible for analysing data in the current project. Her non-scientific interests include folk dance, clinical psychology and brains :).

Tomasz Piernicki

Tomasz obtained a master’s degree in electronics and telecommunications, specializing in sound and image engineering. Earlier he graduated as a computer science engineer, specializing in geoinformatics. Currently, during doctoral studies at the Gdańsk University of Technology. There he works on the intelligent processing of dysfunctional speech in the Brain and Mind Electrophysiology Laboratory. In 2018-2019 he worked in the cryptographic solutions department of Polish Security Printing Works. In 2020-2021, he worked as a data engineer at Babblelabs (acquired by CISCO), where he developed a system for intelligent background noise removal in recordings. Since the end of 2021, he has been associated with the PICTEC Foundation, where he carries out scientific, research and development tasks. He is responsible for implementing deep learning algorithms and providing high-quality programming solutions.

Previous tab Next tab